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'There is no such thing as redemption': Hangman Adam Page is ready to rescue the AEW World Championship at All In
It's been three years since 'Hangman' Adam Page held the AEW World Championship. Having since experienced the most drastic character transformation in the promotion outside of possibly Toni Storm, Page's journey back to the top has seen his story unfold as a champion who lost his confidence, a deranged madman, and now a veteran who scratched and clawed his way back into the spotlight.
He points to life experiences — serving as the perfect dance partner in gruesome battles with Swerve Strickland, ending the in-ring career of Christopher Daniels, and everything that took place onscreen over the past few years — as pivotal in getting him back to the doorstep at the top of the mountain.
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As a Day 1 original in the promotion, there's perhaps no better character to rescue the AEW World Championship from Jon Moxley and the Death Riders at AEW All In: Texas on July 12.
And he feels he's never been closer.
'In the past three years since I've lost the championship, I've had a title shot before, probably more than one honestly. But this feels, for me personally, the closest that I've been to regaining that championship," Page tells Uncrowned. "And that's just a personal feeling within myself. Now is my time. Now will be my time to regain that championship.
'So I'm incredibly excited about All In, excited about the biggest show of the year in the U.S., in a freaking baseball stadium. The whole atmosphere, a cowboy riding into Texas to win the World Championship.'
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Page's journey back to the top ignited in 2023 with a verbal and physical slap in the face from Strickland, kicking off what became AEW's hallmark rivalry of 2023-24.
In a span of a year, Page had gone from losing the world championship to appearing on the pre-show ahead of All Out 2023. Page calls it a low point in his career and admits he'd lost sight of who he was.
'I was previously the world champion and I was opening the show, and there's no shame in that,' Page says.
'The desire for more than that, maybe [Swerve] was right a bit, maybe that had been missing. But ultimately what he went on to do was what lit a fire under me. And I wish that had never happened, obviously. But it did bring out something in me that I don't think had ever been out of me before.'
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The rivalry with Strickland gave Page something to sink his teeth into. It renewed a sense of passion and purpose. Page and Strickland pushed each other to levels we hadn't seen before in an AEW ring. Page says he let the rivalry 'consume' him and he 'wasted two years focusing on the wrong thing.'
That blind rage led him on a path of destruction, leaving Strickland's blood, the ashes from Strickland's burned-down childhood home, and the final three-count of Daniels' career in his wake along the way.
Daniels represented more than just a locker room vet who Page was putting out to pasture.
Page recalls wrestling Daniels more than a decade ago at a small independent show. Daniels was the first person he'd ever wrestled who was 'somebody' who had made a career and a name for themselves.
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'So the whole show was in a cage and we're booked on a Saturday night. We ended up wrestling on a Sunday night because the show went so long. There were a thousand opportunities for him to have been an a**hole, a thousand opportunities for him to be a grizzled guy who, in front of a couple hundred people, didn't need this. This was beneath him,' Page says.
'But he never gave me that sense that I was beneath him. That my time, was beneath him. And it was a match and an experience in life that I learned a lot from, not just as a wrestler, but as a person. And that's something that I've tried to carry with me.'
Page says at the end of Daniels' career, he didn't treat him with the same respect he was given so many years ago.
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'And I think in the moment of realizing that, it was kind of a grounding moment where I've got to really look at who I am, and how I will shape wrestling, how I'll shape the lives of the people around me,' Page continues.
'I'd realized that for so long I had been a negative. I had done nothing good. And looking at the material accomplishments, I had accomplished nothing with that. Nothing. I'd won nothing. I had nothing to show for any of it, and I didn't feel any better about any of it.'
That was the ultimate moment for Page to look in the mirror and change his path forward.
'It has been a lot more difficult than to just focus on the negative and to take it out on others,' Page says.
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'That was easy. This has been a lot more difficult. But it's been a lot more rewarding, not just professionally now winning the Owen [Hart Cup] and going to main event All In, but on a personal level it's been rewarding as well.'
Page says he's been able to refocus in 2025 in a way that he hadn't before his rivalry with Strickland. And if there's any positive to take away from the past few years, it's that.
'While I can say that [Strickland is] one of the worst humans that I've ever met or encountered in any way, I won't take away his wrestling ability, his passion, his desire for not just pro wrestling, but for AEW,' Page says.
'So in some ways I'm appreciative of what I've been through and the ways that it's shaped me, as much as it has destroyed a large portion of my life.'
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Page's journey has been relatively atypical from your standard professional wrestler. He's introspective, vulnerable, and has shown it's OK to express emotion and admit fault.
He's the epitome of what AEW represents.
Hangman Adam Page (left) and AEW World Champion Jon Moxley have a long and sordid history. (Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports)
(USA TODAY Sports / Reuters)
'Maybe it's not typical for professional wrestling and maybe that's good," he says. "Maybe it's good that some of the things that the people in AEW are doing are not typical for wrestling. Because we've seen wrestling before, right? Maybe it's good to see it through a new lens, to allow yourself to be vulnerable, and I think that is ultimately more tough.
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'I'm not afraid to admit if I'm wrong. I'm not afraid to admit fault, and I don't think that's a negative quality as much as anyone might want to paint it as one.'
Page's return as the resident good guy isn't your classic redemption arc story. He simply doesn't believe in that, unwilling to accept that somehow the good deeds of the past few months make up for escalation of his rivalries that knew no bounds.
'I think wrestling fans can call the story that they've seen unfold in front of them, as it relates to my life, whatever they like to call it, whatever they like to see in it. But I don't like to put that label on it. I said a long time ago that there is no such thing as redemption. And I still believe that to a degree,' Page says.
'A lot of the things that I've done in the past few years, they can't be undone. So the only thing that I know that I can do is to try to be a better version of myself going forward. I certainly won't forget what led me down those paths. And all I can do is try not to go down similar paths in the future.'
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As much as Page has tried to shift away from the violence that the past three years have brought him, it's quite poetic that he'll meet arguably the most violent man in wrestling today in Moxley at AEW All In.
They've had their battles, including one of the best matches in AEW history at AEW Revolution 2023. Now the stage is set for another knock-down, drag-out brawl.
'It is ironic that I end up in this position where I may have to be at my most violent," Page says. "I know 'Mox' has got the Death Riders behind him, apparently now he has Matt and Nick (Jackson) behind him, Gabe Kidd behind him and God knows who else.
'So I know this is an uphill battle. Even without all those others, I know what kind of competitor 'Mox' is. I know how violent he is firsthand. So I know what it would take to defeat him. And I know it actually very personally, having done it myself. The timing is odd as I try to move myself away from that approach to wrestling to now need it.'
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Page says the difference between the violence he's committed in the past few years to now is intent. The past two years involved violence born out of hate and frustration with no clear end goal.
'There's a clear end goal here,' Page maintains.
'There's an end to it. And the end is retrieving the AEW Men's World Championship from that briefcase. And that is where it ends for me. If I'm going to have to go back to that, I can go back to it now with a goal in mind and with a different outlook on its intent.'
Page has been here before. But this time is different.
On the grand stage of All In, AEW's biggest domestic show, he's up for the challenge. And there's nothing more appropriate than a cowboy riding into Texas to win the world championship.
